MISC Conference on the Future of Social Democracy
The future of social democracy

May 16, 2001

Conference by the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada

"From the start, the whole point of social democracy is to assert the primacy of politics over economics" says former NDP leader Ed Broadbent, who is co-chair with Desmond Morton, director of the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada, of the conference on:

The Future of Social Democracy
Friday and Saturday, May 25-26
McGill Faculty of Law
3644 Peel Street Montreal
2001 Moot Court

Two hundred social democrats, including NDP leader Alexa McDonough, Canadian Auto Workers President Buzz Hargrove and the United Steel Workers’International President Leo Gerard, have paid $75 each to discuss the ways and means of asserting the primacy of politics over economics. They will address such issues as: Where is social democracy really going in Canada? What are its new ideas? Can the New Democrats regain their role of standard-bearer? Are there lessons to be learned from continental Europe? What is the place for organized labor or for the civil society protestors who filled Quebec City last month? What will social democracy mean economically, socially and politically in a new century? Media representatives are cordially invited to attend the conference. Further information can be found on the conference’s web site.

The conference organizers have made an "absolutely determined effort" to make it highly representative in terms of age, gender, and regions of Canada. As part of that effort, they have arranged for the on-line publication StraightGoods to post and promote on-line discussion and surveys about the conference.

Awarded $20 000 - 2002